Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Ted Sussmann,
assistant professor in CETA’s Civil, Environmental, and Biomedical
Engineering Department, received a “Best Paper” award at the Railway
Engineering Conference hosted by Mike Forde of the University of
Edinburgh in Scotland in July.

The award for “the best paper demonstrating the use of geophysics and
non-destructive testing” was received for Sussmann’s paper, “Use of
Seismic Surface Wave Testing to Assess Track Substructure.”

During the conference, Sussmann presented two papers: “Effect of
Unsupported Ties at Transition Zones” and “Non-Invasive Monitoring of
Track System Gaps.” The papers are the result of a collaboration with
the Volpe Center in Cambridge, Mass. Sussmann’s team members include
Hugh Thompson of the Federal Railroad Administration, Tim Stark and
Steve Wilk of the University of Illinois—Urbana Champaign, Carl Ho of
the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, and Soheil Nazarian of the
University of Texas—El Paso.

Friday, September 25, 2015

Professor Chittaranjan Sahay and Assistant Professor Suhash Ghosh of CETA’s Department of Mechanical Engineering have received a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) to develop course and training materials to accentuate the
impact of standards and standardization on product realization.

The focus of this project will be the design, modeling,
manufacturing, and inspection of a transmission gearbox. The course and
training modules developed at the end of the 18-month project period
will supplement the areas of mechanical design, materials selection,
engineering drawing, manufacturing processes, measurements, and
inspection. The grant is funded by NIST Standards Services Curricula
Development (SSCD) Cooperative Agreement Program.

Through this grant opportunity, Sahay and Ghosh hope to ensure use of
standards in design, manufacturing and metrology courses, standard test
methods in the laboratory, encourage internship experiences to report
on standards usage, obtain teaching resources from Standards Developing
Organizations (SDOs), and identify “capstone projects” to challenge
students in the use and application of standards. According to Sahay and
Ghosh, few engineering students are introduced to standards in school,
and even fewer are given an understanding of the standards development
process. Students need greater exposure to standardization to position
themselves competitively.

CETA's Abby Ilumoka Appointed NSF Program Director for Engineering Education

Dr. Abby Ilumoka,
professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) in the College
of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA), has been appointed Program Director for Engineering Education at the National Science Foundation (NSF) effective September 2015.

The NSF, based in Arlington, Va., is the federal agency that supports
fundamental research across all fields of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) conducted by America’s colleges and
universities. Ilumoka will serve in the directorate for Education and
Human Resources under the Division of Undergraduate Education.

“I am excited about the opportunity to impact U.S. national policy on
STEM in ways that will ensure the U.S. continued global pre-eminence
and believe that my years of teaching, research, and service as
professor of ECE at the University of Hartford have prepared me well for
the position,” Ilumoka said.

Ilumoka’s research specialization is in the area of integrated
circuit optimization using artificial intelligence, work for which she
has received competitive public- and private-sector funding including
three NSF research grants during her 24-year tenure in CETA.

Two
2015 graduates of the University of Hartford's College of Engineering,
Technology, and Architecture (CETA) recently presented their research to
a full house at the international noise conference, INTER-NOISE 2015,
held in San Francisco in August.

Ethan Bourdeau‘15 and Kevin Zheng ’15 presented aspects of their work assessing pedestrian exposure to noise levels in New York City under the supervision of Dr. Eoin King, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and acoustics in CETA.

Both students were awarded the Hallberg Foundation Award
from the Institute of Noise Control Engineering for their work. The
research was supported by funding from the University of Hartford under a
2014–2015 Greenberg Junior Faculty Grant.
Dr. Enda Murphy, who was a visiting Fulbright
scholar at CETA from February to August 2015, also presented at
INTER-NOISE. While at UHart, Murphy worked closely with King to assess
the accuracy of smart phones as noise measurement devices.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

CETA Volunteer Day - Habitat for Humanity

A group of students from the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA) started the semester early by lending a helping hand to Habitat for Humanity (HFH). On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - students from several CETA disciplines assisted on a house build in Hartford, CT.

Along with these students, Assistant Dean David Pines and Prof. Ted Sussmann joined the group to give back to the city of Hartford. Dean Lou Manzione - Dean of CETA greeted the group as well and the day of work began with a morning kick-off.

Volunteer and educational opportunities of this type will continue this year as CETA will also be working with Habitat for Humanity on a Sustainable House Build on Enfield Street in Hartford, CT.